


Nothing She Can't Handle

by DestinyFreeReally



Series: Headline: Investigative Journalist Karen Page Gets Shot [2]
Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Part Two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 19:51:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15541755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestinyFreeReally/pseuds/DestinyFreeReally
Summary: Part Two to GSW. Karen's shot, Frank's the Punisher. A classic tale.





	Nothing She Can't Handle

  
_“Jesus,”_ Karen opened her eyes when she felt like someone was watching her- and the sudden appearance of Frank Castle at her bedside meant that someone _was._   
  
    Frank smiled, secretly relieved that she’d finally stirred. Elbows on the armrests of the waiting-room-chair-from-hell, he leaned towards the bed. “I didn’t want to wake you, those bullets really knock the shit out of you,” his smile disappeared, with his eyes lingering on her arm in the sling.   
  
    “So do well-regulated painkillers,” Karen winced anyway, shifting up in the bed, swallowing the point about how it was just a graze, just a through-and-through, how she was really actually fine. Her whole entire body hurt, and she was still being medicated. “I… figured I’d see you when I got out,” she said.   
   “Red’s nurse-friend Claire showed me a back staircase.” Frank shifted his knees against the bed, and asked, “Is there anything I can do?”   
  
   “Actually… Do you think you could just… hand me the water?” Cup of water on the far-edge of the nightstand next to her, Karen’s mouth felt too dry but her body felt too tired.   
  
   Nodding, Frank leaned forward, reaching for the water past the bouquet of get-well flowers that had Foggy Nelson’s chicken-scratch note and Matthew Murdock’s crooked signature.   
  
    “Here,” holding the plastic cup to her lips, when he inched closer he could see bruises that had already started to heal. Karen cleared her throat when she realized his eyes had lingered too long on the bruising around her neck.  
  
    Drinking the cool water down in too-greedy gulps, she took the cup in her good hand, with a smile. “I’m not _completely_ out of it, you know,” she smiled, with effort, “I hope you didn’t come all the way down here hoping to spoon-feed me jello,” she teased. “Maybe that could be for next time I get shot,” Karen went for the joke but her voice didn’t carry all the amusement she was going for, and suddenly the air in the room shifted between them, like somewhere in between his fingertips at her side and her arm with a hole in it, the Punisher was in there with them then, too. Putting the cup down, Karen swallowed the last sips of water with a flat smile.  
  
   “Could you tell me the truth about something?” Karen eyed him straight-on, like only she did, ready to believe however he answered her. “Are _they…”_ her lips twitched and her eyes dropped.  
  
    “Yes.” He gave a grim, sure nod. The fuckers who shot Karen Page got their just desserts- in bloody spades. It wouldn’t be a story she could ever report on, he was sure their bodies would never be found.   
  
  “Good,” she surprised them both by whispering, and interlocking their fingers against the hospital blanket ready to close her eyes again, exhausted.


End file.
